


this love is more than worth its weight in gold

by cinderfell



Series: we'll take what comes [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (Of Both Blood And Choice), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Kash/Keyleth, Background Vax/Gilmore, But With A Side Dish Of Occasional Serious Talks, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family, Kid Fic, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, despite being kid fic the kids in question take on a support role to the established characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-07 14:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11060475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderfell/pseuds/cinderfell
Summary: It's not that they wouldn't be happy without them, of course, but Vex finds that she can't imagine a life without them - nor does she want to.Or, the one with the quarter elves.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title partially lifted from "say you won't let go" by james arthur.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope y'all like de rolo quarter elves and a whole lot of awkward first-time parents, families trying to grow around the stress of new additions, and a whole lot of domestic fluff.
> 
> while not initially written with the intention of being canon-divergent beyond background relationships, In The End I Am The Fool for writing post-canon fic before canon is actually over. basically with the exception of vex and percy getting married in the timeskip (because i linked it to my proposal fic), this fic exists in a timeline where the vecna bullshit never happened and vox machina mostly stayed in retirement after their year off.
> 
> thanks to [vicious-rhythm](http://vicious-rhythm.tumblr.com/) for the proof-read of this chapter!

The sun hasn’t even risen yet when it starts.

Vex feels _off_. She’s felt off for a couple days now. She’s not sure how else to describe it. Nausea, definitely, but something else beneath that. She wishes she could pinpoint it, but currently she’s consumed by the overwhelming feeling of _oh gods I’m going to vomit_.

She untangles herself from Percy’s arms and sits up, a hand settling on her stomach. She slinks out of bed, shaking like a leaf as she leaves the warmth of both the blankets and her husband’s arms. Trudging blearily to the washroom just off their bedroom, she grabs the bucket she’s had sitting aside for the past couple of days after she started to feel like she was coming down with something.

She barely manages to get to her knees before she’s gagging. Well, she thinks miserably, at least she made the right call and got out of bed.

After a couple of minutes she feels a gentle weight settle in behind her, warm and familiar.

Percy pulls her hair back for her, bunches it up loosely in his grasp so it’s out of her face. His other hand settles comfortingly between her shoulder blades. “My dear?” His voice is barely above a murmur, low and concerned as he brushes his thumb back and forth across the thin fabric of her sleeping shirt in a soothing manner.

“I’m fine,” Vex manages, as if just a moment before she hadn’t been vomiting into a bucket.

“I can see that,” he says, although the dryness of his response doesn’t do anything to alleviate the worry in his voice. “You seem completely fine. Absolutely nothing to worry about here whatsoever.”

“Nope-- _hrgg_ \--” She gags before she can get any further, and before she knows it another wave of sickness hits her and her face is back down in the bucket again. The hand on her back begins rubbing in circles, a calming contrast to the other thing that’s happening.

“Dear, you’re sick,” he says after a moment, letting this wave of nausea begin to pass.

“Mmf fine,” she says, words muffled into the bucket with her head still ducked down.

“No, Vex,” Percy says, putting on the no-nonsense voice he rarely ever uses with her. “You’re not. You’re sick.”

She sniffles and clears her throat, trying to ignore the unpleasant feeling of her nose running and eyes welling up because of this entire ordeal. “I can’t be sick. I have patrols to do--”

“Not anymore,” he says firmly.

She bristles instinctively. “Who else is going to do them?”

“You’ve trained a competent group of recruits. They can fend for themselves until you’re better.”

“No, no, I can still do my patrols.”

“You are a brilliant and capable woman but even you can’t run patrols when you have to keep vomiting every thirty seconds.”

“This will pass,” she insists, voice bordering on desperate. She has _never_ missed a Hunt patrol and she takes pride in that. She serves her new home with all she has, tries her best to give back to the city that’s given her so much in such a short time.

“Even so, you shouldn’t. What if it aggravates whatever has you sick and it gets worse? Any of your Huntsmen will tell you the same. Cassandra will tell you the same.”

She sniffles. She knows he’s right of course, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling awful about it.

Percy’s quiet for a long moment, his hand still absently rubbing circles against her back despite the sickness seeming to have passed for now. Finally, he says, “You know I’m only saying this because I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt, yes?”

She sighs. “Of course I do, darling. Of course.”

“When I do something stupid that endangers my health, you’re the one who always tells me to take a step back-- and even if at the time I’m a bit annoyed that I can’t continue what I’m doing, I also know you’re doing it because it’s for the best and because I’m being a bit dense.”

“Oh gods,” Vex says softly, slumping back into his arms so her back is pressed against his chest. He loosens his hold on her hair and moves to loosely wrap his arms around her. “We’ve traded places, haven’t we?”

He chuckles a little. “You’re pulling a Percy, dear.”

She buries her face in her hands. _“I’m pulling a Percy.”_

He says, “Let me call Pike to see you here, okay? She’s still in town for now and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

Vex lets out a long sigh before nodding. “Alright.”

“You might’ve just caught a stomach bug or something. It could be gone in a day or two. That said, I’d rather Pike make sure. And besides, I’m sure whatever it is, she can help.” He presses a kiss against her temple, warm and sure behind her.

The thing about Percy, she still finds after all these years, is that he calms her in a way that nobody else is capable of, settles her nerves and worse thoughts when nothing else can.

She hopes she never loses the burst of warmth in her heart whenever it happens.

* * *

Pike shows up with herbal tea, some healing spells, and some good old-fashioned medical training a half hour later. Vex’s nausea has since passed-- and luckily it stays gone throughout Pike’s chat and checkup-- and she’s been left feeling pretty good considering how she started this morning.

Halfway through Pike checking her over, she frowns. Vex almost asks but the little cleric simply shakes her head, clearly dismissing whatever it is she thinks she found. And then it happens again, and this time the frown doesn’t go away.

“Alright,” Pike says finally, nervously wringing her hands as she looks her over. “I’m about to tell you something and it’s probably going to freak you out, but I need you to stay calm for me, okay?”

Anxiety churns in the pit of her stomach and for a moment she worries she’s going to puke again. Instead, Vex puts on her best everything-is-fine smile. “What? Are you going to tell me I have some flesh-eating disease? A deadly virus?”

Pike grimaces. “No. Quite the opposite, really.”

Vex raises an eyebrow. “Well, out with it then.”

“You’re pregnant, Vex.”

Silence.

Vex laughs. She laughs loud enough and suddenly enough to scare Pike, making the poor cleric jump.

“Vex?” she questions, looking worried as she takes Vex’s laughter in.

“You’re-- you’re kidding,” Vex says after her sudden laughter finally subsides, a smile still pulled tight across her face.

“No, Vex.”

She laughs again, higher-pitched this time. “You’re fucking with me. Is this-- is this Vax? Grog? Vax _and_ Grog?”

Pike reaches out to take Vex’s hands in her own, leaning in closer with a serious expression. “Vex, look at me. Would Grog-- actually, wait, ignore that. But would your brother prank you with this? Something this serious? And would _I_ go along with it?”

The near-hysteric laughter fades, her eyes settling on where Pike’s hands hold hers, the earnest look on her face. There’s not a bit of humor in it. Vex feels a sudden chill creep up the back of her neck. “No. No, you wouldn’t.”

Pike squeezes her hands. “Have-- have you two talked about this happening? I mean, I know you’re married, but--”

She runs her tongue over her bottom lip. “We… have touched on it.”

Well, that’s not a lie. But it’s not exactly the truth either.

Like a lot of things with Vex and Percy, they’ve danced circles around the topic without actually talking about it.

The closest they’ve ever gotten was a conversation shortly before they got engaged-- which was an entire debacle in itself, involving them both stressing each other out, a walk in the woods, and an accidental double proposal, but that’s a different story-- when they were coyly waltzing around questions of the future.

* * *

(“Did you ever think you’d live in a big manor like this?” Percy asks, absently rubbing circles against the bare skin of her arm as they lay together in bed.

She nuzzles closer to him, tucking her head beneath his chin. “No. Well, maybe when I was younger-- like, very little. I used to dream about living in a castle.”

“Fascinating,” says the man who could sleep in the castle owed to him by his blood at any point but instead chooses to spend most of his nights with her in her comparatively small house. “Did you ever dream about marrying a prince?” he teased.

She rolls her eyes. “Or a princess. I’m not picky.” He snorts. After a moment she gives a little shrug. “For a time.”

In truth, any dreams of marrying royalty or nobility had been dashed the day she and Vax were taken away by Syldor and they faced the reality of their birth, of the truth behind many brief affairs between nobility and peasantry. It had been a wake up call to say the least.

Lately, though, there’s been something creeping around the corners of her mind that she’s scared to put a name to, scared to acknowledge. Admitting it’s there makes it real, and she isn’t sure if she’s ready for that. Maybe someday, maybe even sooner than she thinks, but not quite yet.

Percy chuckles softly. “Given up on marrying the prince then? Or the princess?”

She smiles despite herself, that nameless thing skirting at the edge of her mind. “On the prince or princess? For quite some time I’m afraid.” She clears her throat. “Not to, um, say that I’ve given up on marriage entirely. I just don’t think it’ll be with any princes or princesses.”

She feels him tense briefly against her for a moment, but in another he’s relaxed again. “You, ah, think marriage is still in the cards for you?”

She bites down on her bottom lip, her fingers tightening in the fabric of his shirt. “With the right person, I suppose.”

“Right, right, of course,” he says quickly, and she feels regret bubble up in her stomach that she can’t see his face the way that they’re laying. “You can’t just marry anybody.”

“No,” she agrees. “It would have to be somebody I get along with well, somebody who treats me like an equal. Somebody who’s basically one of my closest friends and knows me better than most everyone else.” She picks at one of the buttons on his shirt with her thumb, unbuttons it only to button it again. “Somebody I love with my whole heart.”

The hand Percy’s been using to trace patterns against her bare arm smooths down so it’s resting against her, his thumb slowly stroking back and forth. “I think that’s… very fair.”

Vex clears her throat. “What about you?”

“Hmm?”

“Have you ever seen yourself getting married?”

Percy’s quiet for a long time. Finally, he says, “I never used to. When I was younger I thought I would be lucky enough to avoid getting married off for political gain since I was the third born and known for being less interested in ladies or lords and more in my books and inventions. I wasn’t… a very desirable bachelor, I suppose. Too absorbed in my own studies and work to have time for romance, Vesper used to tell me. And that was fine.” He gives a little shrug. “I don’t know. Lately I’ve been thinking and-- well, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. With the right person, like you said.”

She shifts where her head rests so the strong and steady thump thump in his chest is audible. “Somebody you love with your whole heart?”

He squeezes her arm. “Exactly.”

She shakes her head. “I couldn’t just marry somebody for political reasons.”

Percy sighs. “It’s commonplace among nobility. More people marry for political advantage than for love, although supposedly many find that love grows between them eventually.”

“But how many never find love there?” Vex counters. “You can’t just… force love. That’s not how it works.”

He shrugs again. “Some are more lucky than others. Sometimes friendship forms, and from that love.”

A thought snags in the corners of her brain and she bites down hard on her bottom lip before she asks, “Percy?”

“Yes dear?”

“If things were different, do you think you would enter into a political marriage? If it benefited Whitestone? If your parents were around and they wanted it?”

He’s quiet. He’s quiet for a long time. Finally, he says, “I wouldn’t want to, but I don’t know if that would matter. I would… much prefer to marry someone I love.”

She nods.

“I, ah, suppose the council is looking at me and Cassandra to get married eventually. To ensure the de Rolo legacy is passed on.” He shifts uncomfortably, the tension returning to his body. She doesn’t like that, burying her face against him and pressing herself closer. After a moment he seems to relax into her again. “Since we’re the only two left, we’re expected to marry and have children.”

“Children,” Vex says slowly. Now that is an entirely different can of worms that’s sitting even further back in her mind than the nameless thing that creeps up into sight when marriage is mentioned, and yet-- “I haven’t… thought about that much.”

“I haven’t either,” he admits. “Quite frankly I doubted I’d even get as far as a serious relationship.” He clears his throat, a little embarrassed.

“I think it’s a bit like marriage, I suppose? I haven’t thought about it, but I think-- I think with the right person I might…” She trails off, letting that hang between them.

Finally, Percy repeats, “With the right person.” It’s almost a soft agreement.)

* * *

She sees Pike off quietly, the cleric taking her hands before she goes and murmuring reassurances. Vex promises to talk to her again after she talks to Percy and Pike reaches up to brush the hair out of Vex’s eyes, patting her on the cheek.

“You’re going to be fine,” Pike says softly, using that voice that could calm even the wildest of beasts. It soothes her a bit, at least for a while.

After Pike leaves, Vex draws a bath and cleans herself up, tries to loosen her muscles and relieve the tension building in her body. Trinket wanders in from the gardens and lays his head against the side of the tub, his dark eyes intelligent and knowing. She scratches him behind his ears, ignoring the little tremble in her hands.

She’s in the middle of drying herself off in the fluffiest and most comforting towel she could find when Percy opens the bedroom door with a handful of books tucked under one arm-- clearly back from a trip from the castle library-- and looks her over.

“You feeling any better?” he asks, walking forward to his desk so he can set his books down there.

She laughs nervously, wringing her hands. “I suppose.” She smiles but it falters almost immediately. “Percy, I need to tell you something.”

He turns to her with a frown, hearing the serious tone of her voice. When he sees her wavering smile he tenses immediately. “Dearest?”

Her heart warms at the endearment, one of his fondest for her. It’s a small thing, a silly thing, but it helps ease some of her nerves.

She takes a deep breath and pats the bed next to her.

“Darling,” she says as he settles next to her on the bed. Oh, gods. How is she even supposed to go about this? Finally-- because even at a time like this, especially at a time like this, she is not without humor-- she settles on, “It’s yours.”

Percy blinks at her for a moment before a fond smile settles across his face, which is not the reaction of instant realization she was sort of hoping for. That would make this a lot easier, if he just… got it, right off the bat. He reaches up and presses the palm of his hand right over her heart, which she hopes he doesn’t realize is going a hundred times too fast. “I know, my dear.”

Oh well. More direct, then.

Vex clears her throat and shakes her head, leaning forward so the tips of their noses are brushing. She folds a hand over the one Percy holds over her heart and slowly moves it down until it’s resting against her stomach. His brow scrunches up as she looks at her, perplexed. Slowly, she repeats, “Darling, _it’s yours_.”

There’s a moment of incomprehension on his face as he stares at her before his blue eyes suddenly go wide behind his golden spectacles in realization. Ah, she thinks, there it is. “Oh,” is all he says.

“Oh,” she agrees timidly, only able to meet his eyes because she’s forcing herself to. It’s not shame, really, but whatever she’s feeling doesn’t feel good. It’s an unstable mixture of anxiety, the feeling of being caught off-guard and not knowing whether it’s a good or bad thing, and the uncomfortable and persistent nausea from earlier.

He clears his throat, blinking rapidly as he seems to try to process the life-changing thing she’s saying to him. “Do you-- do you want--?”

“With the right person,” she says slowly, squeezing his hand. His eyes flicker in recognition of her words. “And-- and you’re the only person who’s ever felt right. For a lot of things.”

He shifts, leaning closer to her so he can rest his forehead against hers while his other hand comes up to cup her cheek. “I, ah, I feel the same.”

Vex takes a deep breath. “Okay. Because I only want to have children if they’ll be wanted, you know?”

_Only if they’re not like Vax and I._

“Well, if you want them, then I want them,” Percy says earnestly. “But I don’t want you to feel like I’m forcing you to have it, or keep it, or--”

She reaches up to touch the hand on her face gently. “I know, Percy. I know you wouldn’t.”

“So--?”

“If you’ll stay with me and help me,” she starts slowly, and Percy instantly nods, “then I think I want them.”

He pulls back just enough to press a kiss against the tip of her nose. “Of course I will.”

Vex lets out a long sigh of relief. “Okay. Well, that makes things… a lot less complicated. Although this entire thing is already impossibly complicated to begin with.”

“I’m sure the fact that we’ve never explicitly discussed having children doesn’t make things easier,” he says.

She laughs despite herself, a small weight lifting off of her. “I believe we brought it up hypothetically and incredibly vaguely and both danced around giving a straight answer beyond _with the right person_ , and nothing more specific than that.”

He shakes his head. “Gods, but we are awful about that, aren’t we?”

“The dancing around important conversations thing? Yeah, it’s a real problem. _We’ll talk later_ comes to mind as a particularly prominent example.” She laughs again, unable to hold back the little pinpricks of tears welling up in her eyes. He smiles at her warmly, moving to wipe them away with his thumbs before they can fall across her cheeks. She admits, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Neither do I!” he says with a chuckle, and she instantly feels a hundred times better now that he’s begun to relax too. “I suppose we’ll figure it out.”

“I’m sure we will. I mean, at least we won’t be figuring this out alone,” she says.

“No, we won’t.” After a long moment, Percy somehow manages to go even paler at a sudden realization. “We’ll have to tell Vax.”

Vex laughs again. “We do!” She leans forward and steals a quick kiss from him. “Don’t worry about that, Percy. He isn’t going to kill you, not for this. Not when you’re staying and helping.”

“Alright, well, I still want you to be the one to tell him.”

“That can be arranged. You do realize that that means you’re in charge of telling Cassandra, yes?”

Percy swallows and gives a shaky smile. “I know, I know.”

She snorts. “Your sister isn’t _that_ bad, Percy.”

“Oh, she’s awful. But not as awful as telling Vax myself would be, so I’ll take Cassandra over him any day.”

“You two have been fine for years now!”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t be a little afraid of him at appropriate moments,” Percy grumbles, almost pouting. It’s adorable. After a moment he asks, “So I don’t suppose we could have a few days of keeping this to ourselves while we process things, could we?”

“I don’t think so. Pike knows, obviously, which means that she’ll tell Grog and then Grog will tell Scanlan and then-- well, one way or another it’s going to get to Vax and Cassandra.” He sighs at that in the cutest way and she smiles and cups his face, pressing another small kiss against his lips. When she pulls back from it she adds, “So they may as well hear it from us first.”

He grumbles but nods, reaching up to rake a hand through his mess of white hair. A moment passes and he relaxes again, blue eyes soft as he looks at her. “Well, there are certainly worse things you could’ve been talking about when you said you needed to tell me something.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Worse, sure. But were you expecting this?”

He dryly responds, “Not at all, as you could probably tell by my reaction.” Vex chuckles. A curious expression appears on his face, but she’d be blind not to notice the underlying current of worry there too. “I am wondering, though: what did you think my reaction would be? Because you seemed almost scared at first.”

She reaches out and takes his hand, threading her fingers between his. “I mean, I don’t know. I didn’t think you’d be mad or want to leave me or anything. I mean, we are married for a reason.” He squeezes her hand reassuringly and she smiles back at him in response. “I don’t know what I was expecting, darling. Realistically this is exactly how I’d expect you to react. Honestly, I think it was less your response and more… actually telling you, I suppose. Because saying it to you makes it real-- which is silly, I know, because Pike’s already said it out loud, but it’s different.”

He nods. “I suppose I understand that. I just was worried that you thought I’d react badly.”

She tightens her grip on his hand. “No, darling.” After a moment she laughs softly. “I will say that I’m happy this happened now instead of, say, a year ago before we were married.”

“Oh, yes,” Percy agrees instantly. “That would definitely have made things much more complicated.”

“And things are already complicated the way it is now, so I don’t even think I could deal with _more_ complication.” After a moment she quietly adds, “I think I’d still want this, though. Even if it happened then. Is that silly?”

Percy seems to think before he says, “If it’s silly then I suppose we’d be silly together, because I feel the same.”

She lets go of his hand so she can wrap her arms around his shoulders and lean into him, burying her face against his neck. “I do vastly prefer this version, however.”

He simply presses a kiss against her hairline in response.

* * *

The months crawl by achingly slow at first, almost at a snail’s pace, and all she wants is for things to speed up so something happens besides her slowly losing her mind worrying over little things while waiting for something, anything. Then suddenly things are moving faster than she ever expected-- faster than she wants, faster than she knows how to deal with-- and not only is she losing her mind worrying, everything that she’s worrying about is piling up inside of her far quicker than she can handle.

So she can’t really say she’s surprised that there comes a point where she snaps and locks herself in their bedroom as the reality of what’s going to happen shortly-- in a few weeks, she thinks dizzily as she curls up in bed-- finally overwhelms her.

“Darling,” Percy says, his voice thick with concern from the other side of their bedroom door. He’s come by to check on her a few times over the past couple of hours since she locked herself away. “If you need to talk, you know I’m here.”

She makes a noncommittal noise, toying with the corner of her blanket. He stays out there for another ten minutes and tries to talk to her through the door, his voice easing some of her worse nerves but, unlike usually, it isn’t able to erase them completely. Eventually-- when her mind fills with too many voices and her gut clenches with an unprecedented feeling of _danger_ and it becomes too overwhelming to speak-- she hears his familiar footsteps walking away from the door. She buries her face in a pillow.

Her isolation doesn’t last long, as soon there’s another voice on the other side of the door.

“Vex’ahlia,” Vax says, knocking on her door. “I know you’re in there. Open up.”

Any words she may have for him stick under her tongue. Another current of anxiety courses through her. She didn’t-- she didn’t think Percy would get Vax.

“Listen, I know running away from our problems and refusing to talk about them is kind of a family trait, but in the past couple of years I thought we’d both realized it doesn’t solve anything and does more harm than good. So whatever you’re freaking out about, come out here and talk to me or Percival. Gods, I’m sure Cassandra would talk to you about whatever it is too.”

Oh, gods. _Cassandra_. She doesn’t know how she’s managed to forget about disappointing Cassandra on top of everything else, but-- well, she’s thinking about that now too.

Vax, persistent and stubborn Vax, eventually gives up too, opting to give her space. He could pick the lock with ease, of course, but even if he tends to be a bit dense sometimes, he’s smart enough to know that him essentially breaking into her room and trying to force her to talk won’t help.

She’s left in silence for another half hour, slowly working herself up over all the little things rolling around in her head.

“Oi!”

Vex jumps at the voice, surprised and more than a little confused. It practically shocks the voice back into her. _Of all the people_ \-- “Scanlan?”

“No, it’s your _other_ longtime musically-inclined and vertically-impaired friend.”

“I--” she begins before stopping herself because she realizes she has no idea what to even say. A long moment passes, the only audible sound the gentle tapping of Scanlan’s little foot on the wood floor. Shit, she thinks. This whole thing is already bizarre, why wouldn’t Scanlan be here for this? Finally, she rolls out of bed and slowly walks to the door, unlocking it and opening it so she can look down at the little man.

His face lights up when she does. “Really? That’s all it took? I thought I’d at least have to threaten to burn this house down for the second time.”

She blinks and shakes her head, more than a little disoriented.

“Who sent you?” she asks, regarding him carefully as she crawls back into bed.

“Percy,” he says. Vex’s eyebrows shoot up. “I know. That’s how you know it’s serious, when Percy asks for my help.”

She fidgets, wrapping her arms around herself. “It’s not that bad.”

“Really?” he says, gesturing to where she’s curled up in bed with her arms protectively wrapped around her, the dark circles under her eyes. “You’re worrying him, you know. Percy. And your brother too.”

She flinches like she’s been hit, recoiling from the thought of worrying them, of worrying anybody. Shit, that’s part of the reason she locked herself in here: so she wouldn’t worry anybody while she broke down.

He takes her silence and the fact that she hasn’t immediately yelled at him to get out as a wary acceptance of his presence. He slowly climbs up on the side of the bed, keeping a respectable distance from her, giving her space when she’s so obviously emotional.

“So, you let me in here when you wouldn’t even let your twin brother or your husband in,” he points out. Vex gives a noncommittal little shrug of acknowledgement. “Are we going to talk about why you’ve barricaded yourself in here?”

She picks at a stray bit of thread at the edge of her blanket before she sighs and nods.

“Alright, well, you know Percy loves you,” Scanlan says, and she gives a little nod of confirmation. “And you know he wants to be here for this child.”

She nods again, because of course she knows.

“So he’s not the problem here, at least not from what I can tell. What’s the problem, then?” he asks, looking her over with scrunched eyebrows.

Vex runs her tongue over her bottom lip, and in a quiet voice she finally says the thought that’s been rattling around in her head for a long time now: “I’ve already ruined one pure lineage by existing, and now I’m going to ruin another.”

There’s a long moment of silence before Scanlan softly says, “Oh, Vex.”

She reaches up to rub at her eyes, fighting back against the way they sting with unshed tears. “I know it’s stupid.”

“It is,” he agrees, and shifts closer to her on the bed, “but that doesn’t make you stupid for worrying.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” she says, frowning. “I’m having stupid thoughts but I’m not stupid?”

He shrugs. “Parenthood is full of stupid thoughts.”

She thinks about that for a long moment before finally saying, “You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” She winces at how that sounds as it comes out.

“Considering I nearly ran myself into the ground worrying about how my daughter wouldn’t want to have a relationship with me because of factors outside my control at the time?” He raises an eyebrow. “Yeah. Which is why I’m here trying to stop you from doing the same thing before the whole gig even starts.”

She clears her throat awkwardly. “Uh, well. Thank you.”

He shrugs again. “Is the whole ruining a bloodline the only thing you have weighing you down? Because locking yourself in your room and refusing to talk to your husband or brother sounds like a big buildup of things, not just one.”

She shifts, biting down on her bottom lip. Even after all these years, she’s still… incredibly uncomfortable speaking about her own fears and insecurities. But with the gnome it’s almost easier for reasons she can’t exactly describe. It’s just something about him. “No. I’ve also been… worried that I’m going to be like my father.” Scanlan’s eyebrow shoots up. “You know, all awful and distant and condescending.”

He snorts. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about that. Your dad is a special kind of awful that I think you’d have to _try_ to reach.”

“I mean, I don’t think I’d be like him,” she says, rubbing at her arms. “But what if that attitude is something he passed down to me?”

“I feel like the fact that you’re so aware of it and are afraid of it is a good sign,” Scanlan says, and she squints at him. “No, really! You care enough to be scared and that’s important.” After a moment he adds, “Although I think we’d all prefer if you didn’t get so scared that you have a mental breakdown just weeks before you’re due and lock yourself away and refuse to talk to anyone.”

Vex shakes her head. “I don’t know, Scanlan. I know this is all stupid and just making things worse but it’s like I just can’t stop, you know? I’m just terrified that I’m going to ruin this kid with all my issues.” She laughs then, but it’s sad. “And I know Percy feels the same way with his issues, but you don’t see him locking himself away in the bedroom and refusing to talk to anyone.”

Scanlans hums thoughtfully. “No, only his workshop.”

She pauses at that. “He always does that, though.”

“Exactly. So what better place to have the same breakdown you’re having now than somewhere you already lock yourself away in regularly? It definitely means he avoids a conversation like this, although that’s probably not a good thing,” Scanlan says. He shrugs then. “I don’t know. Might not be what’s happening, but he’s pretty good at figuring out how to hide his problems so I thought I’d toss it out there.”

And now that he’s pointing it out, now that she’s thinking about it, he has been spending way more time in his workshop. She hasn’t really noticed because, well, Percy’s always had a tendency to hide himself away down there, to lose himself in his work. But what Scanlan is suggesting? It makes sense. Her heart seizes up at the thought that she’s been too caught up in her own fears to notice her husband’s anxieties.

“I should talk to him,” she says quietly.

“You both should talk to each other,” he agrees. “I think you both could need it.”

She lets out a long, shaky sigh. “You know, I don’t think I’m ever going to get over how weirdly wise you are in your own way.”

Scanlan snorts. “Nah, don’t pin the word wise on me. I’m not wise, I’m just old. I’ve gotten really good at just saying a bunch of shit and letting everybody else put meaning behind it.”

“Well, it’s very effective,” she says.

They fall into companionable silence, feeling a little better despite herself.

“Do you want me to play for you?” he asks after a moment, and for the first time she notices the flute he holds in his hand.

She almost turns him down, almost tells him that it’s alright and that he can leave. Instead she swallows it down and admits, “Yes.”

“Alright.” He settles himself on the bed, crossing his leg and getting comfortable for his performance.

What he plays isn’t like the music she’s used to from before their big blowup-- and in fact, she hasn’t heard him actually play more than a few notes since they all started talking again, so when he starts she’s almost startled. The tune he plays is softer, slower. It fills the room with a warmth she can’t quite explain, an all-encompassing blanket in the form of a song. She’s used to lively tavern music from him when he plays, something that builds and builds in pace and volume until it spills over into a energetic tune fit for dancing. This song builds, of course, but it doesn’t build into the lively vibe she’s used to, instead building in a way that almost feels like the gentle sweep of a tide coming in before pulling back out to sea, only to return and repeat. It’s relaxing, and despite her surprise at that choice of song she finds herself melting back against the bed as she listens.

And then a quiet realization occurs to her.

“Scanlan?” she whispers, watching his shadow against her wall as it flickers and dances in the candlelight.

The flute music pauses. “Yes?”

She sniffles. “Thank you.”

Another long moment passes. Finally, he says, “You’ll be fine, kid. And your kid is going to be fine.”

“Don’t call me kid,” Vex snaps, but it lacks the usual fire.

“Yes, _Lady Vex’ahlia_ ,” he shoots back in a mockery of the way the servants talk to her, but there’s a softness to the teasing that makes her heart constrict.

She kicks him and he laughs, because in the end she’s still her and he’s still him.

He plays for her for quite some time, long enough where she loses track of it all. Minutes could pass, hours even, and she can’t be certain of anything except for the unwavering sound of Scanlan and his flute. She drifts in and out, her head lolling to one side only to awaken seemingly instantly-- although who’s to say she wasn’t out for much longer?-- and find the bard still playing away. At one point she comes to and it seems like he’s leaving and in a moment of panic she reaches out and seizes his hand, her brain looping _not again not again not again not_ \--

He reaches to pat her hand soothingly before scooting back into place, tugging his hand out of her grasp and starting again.

Eventually, though, even a Shorthalt reaches his limit and must put down the flute for the night. She lets him, half-asleep as she listens to the soft sounds of tiny footsteps and then the sound of her bedroom door opening.

“Scanlan?” she says, her voice small.

She hears him pause, a breathy chuckle coming from the man. “I’m afraid I have to retire now, Vex. If I play anymore I’m afraid I may blow my lungs out.”

“No,” she says. She bites her lip, scrunches her eyes shut even tighter and turns her head away from him out of… embarrassment? There’s an openness to what she wants to say that’s not comfortable, an admission to vulnerability. “I’m glad you’re here for this.”

This. ‘This’ is a weighted thing. Glad he’s here for her child, of course, that’s the obvious thing. Glad he’s here for the growing of their family, his family if he still wants them. Glad he’s here for her when she’s breaking down, glad he’s here when she needs a clever tongue and frank wisdom. Glad he’s here for… well, just for her in general, right? Because for a while-- a long while-- he wasn’t, and she wasn’t there for him when he needed it. And they burnt bridges that night, burnt them so badly that it’s taken years to even begin the process of mending them. Hells, Percy’s only recently began to make amends, even out of politeness. Something broke between them all that night, something that they still carry the cracks of in their hearts to this day, and she doubts that any of them will ever be the same no matter how much they all reach out to each other, try to do better.

But he’s here.

Scanlan is here for her, for them, and that matters.

There’s quiet for a long time. Finally, he says, “I’m glad I’m here for this too.”

And Scanlan Shorthalt doesn’t cry when other people are watching him, so perhaps that’s why Vex keeps her head turned away because she can tell from his voice that he’s begun to.

The door closes behind him, leaving her in the dark of the room once more.

When Percy crawls into bed with her ten minutes later she moves into him, pushes herself as close to him as she can possibly get. He settles one hand into her hair, tracing the curves of her braid with his fingertips.

“Do you feel any better?” he asks, tucking her head beneath his chin.

“Surprisingly yes,” she admits, eyelids fluttering shut once more as she adjusts to the familiar warmth of him. “He said a lot of things that I needed to hear.”

His fingers curl between the strands of her braid and settle so he’s cupping the back of her neck loosely. “I think he’s… good at that.”

“Yes.”

“Are you less scared now?”

“Honestly? No. I’m still scared, but I think… I think I’m scared of all the normal things now, and less of the silly ones.” She pushes her face further into his neck and breathes in the smell of him: the black powder and smoke and faint herbal scent beneath it all. “Are you scared?”

He’s silent. For a second she thinks he’s going to avoid her question the way he sometimes does. He’s like her in that way, always willing to do anything to get out of talking his problems, to avoid making other people worry about him.

“I’m terrified,” Percy admits, a long sigh punctuating it.

“That’s okay. We can be terrified together.” After a moment, she adds, “Actually, I’m pretty sure the whole point of parenthood is being terrified together. You’re literally bringing an entirely new person into existence, if you aren’t even a little bit scared I think that might be more of a problem.”

He laughs. “That’s certainly one way to look at it.”

And there’s more to this conversation, surely, and she’ll come back to it in the future, but for right now all she wants to do is curl up next to her husband and nap.

* * *

She finds Scanlan in the gardens chatting with Kaylie the next day, sheets of music strewn across the bench that they’re sitting on in front of the roses. Kaylie raises an eyebrow when she spots Vex coming-- ever the sharp one, that girl-- and politely excuses herself for a moment.

“You doing better?” Scanlan asks as she takes a seat next to him, careful not to disturb their sheets of paper.

“Much.” She brushes a flyaway hair back behind one of her ears and pulls the gray fur shawl tighter around her. She hesitates before she finally asks, “Where did you pick up that song you played me last night? The first one, I mean.”

Scanlan blinks, a little taken aback. For a moment she thinks he’s going to draw away from her, close himself off the way he tends to do and lock the door with a joke, but he clears his throat and glances around to make sure nobody is close, his gaze lingering on Kaylie’s form in the distance as she prods at some flowers. “I wrote it. For her.”

“Oh,” she says, surprised and yet… it makes sense, doesn’t it? That a song like that would be for his daughter.

He gives a little shrug. “It’s kind of a lullabye, I guess. The kind for a child, not a grown woman. So I suppose it’s more for me than her, actually. I know that’s a stupid thought.”

After a long moment of silence, Vex reaches out and puts her hand on top of his, startling him. “Parenthood is full of stupid thoughts.”

Despite himself, Scanlan cracks a smile.

They sit together in silence for a few minutes longer. He doesn’t pull his hand away from hers.

* * *

Vex isn’t exactly sure why she’s surprised when it happens.

Gods, she hears everybody telling her ‘any day now’ over and over until she’s practically sick of it. Even Pike, sweet, wonderful Pike says it one too many times during a daily check in and Vex momentarily fights the impulse to strangle someone.

“Any day now,” Pike says as she checks Vex over with a smile.

“Any day now,” Vax says, braiding her hair back.

“Any day now,” Keyleth says with a laugh, druidcrafting blue flowers for Vex’s bedside vase.

“Any day now,” Scanlan says as he sits next to her in the gardens, keeping her company with the gentle sound of flute music while he writes a song for her child.

“Any day now,” Percy says, wrapping an arm around her as they sit in bed with Trinket laying at their feet.

Grog, however, doesn’t say anything as she perches up on a wall by him, just grunts as he practically slices the poor training dummy in two. The Pale Guard and her Huntsmen aren’t enthusiastic about having her there, surrounded by weapons and danger, but Grog doesn’t seem to mind all that much. In fact, he practically growls if anybody else tries to approach her, if any of them try to talk her into leaving. Anybody with the guts to try to talk the Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt is quickly turned away by the hulking giant of a man.

“You gonna say anything about how close I am?” she asks finally, her chin resting on her hand as she watches him.

He shrugs. “Nah. It’ll happen when it happens. No point gettin’ worked up over it like the others.”

She throws her hands up in the air. “Thank you! Honestly, I think everybody’s more excited about this than I am and I’m the one carrying the damn baby! I mean, I understand Percy, but all of them doing it is so…”

“Much,” Grog finishes.

“So much,” she agrees.

They fall into a friendly and comfortable silence after this, as they tend to do. Vex watches him throw axes-- brutally maiming the training dummys that the poor guards keep rolling out for him-- and starts to feel an itch in her hand as she does, the need to pick up a bow almost overwhelming. She’s about to call over a guard and ask for a bow, any bow they have, because she’s getting antsy and needs to shoot when she feels something else.

So, here’s the thing: Vex has never experienced this before, never even been around anything like this before besides passing it by. That doesn’t stop her from freezing up as a moment of realizations hits her when she _feels_ it.

“Holy shit,” she says.

“What?” Grog turns to her with a confused look.

“I think any day now is today,” she says, reaching up to rest a hand against her stomach.

Grog’s heavy brow scrunches up on confusion. “I don’t--”

“The baby, Grog! The baby.”

Grog’s eyes go wide. “Oh! Oh, fuck.”

Perhaps Vex shouldn’t be as surprised as she is when Grog gingerly scoops her up into his arms and begins taking her up to the room they’ve been preparing for her in the castle, but she still yelps when he does.

It’s not the most elegant way of transportation, but Vex would wager that being carried up to the castle in the arms of a goliath is definitely one of the weirder ways a de Rolo woman has been brought there to give birth.

Well, at least it’ll be a fun story.

She hopes that Grog throwing open the castle doors and bellowing, “BABY DE ROLO IS COMING!” is included in the stories that are sure to pass around the city in the coming days.

The poor servants and guards all wince at his booming voice, Vex herself not entirely unaffected considering their proximity, but after a moment they all seem to freeze as they comprehend what Grog just said and the image in front of them of him carrying the heavily pregnant and uncomfortable looking lady of the house in his arms. They immediately scatter like mice, scrambling to prepare things and contact anyone who needs to be contacted.

(And probably to gossip, although she can hardly blame them.)

* * *

“She’s definitely a de Rolo,” Vax says with a grin after the whole thing is done, and Vex knows immediately what he’s looking at. Babies are hard to get features out of a lot when they’re all soft and squishy and new, but the brown thatch of hair atop her head is unmistakably the same color as Cassandra’s and of Percy’s and the rest of the family’s from the portraits she’s seen. She’s mostly just pink right now, but she seems like she’s somewhere between Percy’s impossibly pale skin and her own dark olive beneath it all.

She hopes she ends up with the same regal nose and heavy eyebrows as Percy and Cass; she’s always liked those and it’s hard for her to imagine a de Rolo without them.

There are the slightest traces of her, though. Elaina’s eyes are dark brown, the tips of her ears just slightly pointed. It isn’t quite as prominent as her own, the elven heritage now outweighed by the human blood, and they curve more than they end in a sharp point, but there’s undeniably a little elf in her.

(“Elaina,” she’d managed to get out after Pike handed her daughter to her for the first time, looking up at her brother. She’d been struck speechless besides that, exhausted and emotional.

“Guess you win, sis,” Vax murmured, pushing the dark strands of hair that had fallen loose from her braid away from her sweaty forehead as he looked down at her with the utmost tenderness, tears beginning to well up in his eyes. When Pike looked up at them questioningly he added, “First to have a daughter gets to use our mother’s name as the first name.” He shrugged good-naturedly. “What? We’re competitive even when it comes to our children’s names.”)

“She’s so little,” Grog says in awe when he gets to hold her, quite literally dwarfing her in his arms. Perhaps other people would be worried about having the hulking giant of a man known for flying of the handle holding their newborn infant, but not Vex. She knows how good he is with little ones, how careful and conscious of his own size and strength he is.

“You should see a gnome baby.” Pike’s smile is huge as she looks up at him.

Grog’s eyes go wide. “You get littler?”

“Of course!”

Scanlan laughs. “Oi, big guy. Pass her this way.”

Her attention shifts to the back of the group, focusing in on Percy. He’s been quiet for a long while now, just staring at Elaina being passed around their family.

(Part of her worries that he feels like he’s not allowed to hold her.)

“Do you want to hold her, Percy?” she asks, because for all her tendencies to dance in circles sometimes being upfront with her husband is the best action.

He snaps to attention, looking caught off-guard. His eyes dart around the room nervously. “Ah, if that’s alright.”

She smiles sweetly at him. “You’re her father, Percy. Of course it’s alright.” She glances at Scanlan. “I know you just got her, but would you mind passing her off?”

The gnome’s eyes twinkle. “It would be my pleasure.” He shuffles up and holds her up to Percy. “Come say hi to your daughter, de Rolo.”

Percy slowly takes her into his arms, almost holding her the way he holds his black powder: tenderly and carefully, afraid he’ll drop it or set it off.

Grog grins a toothy smile, instantly drawing her attention over to him. “I’m gonna teach her _all_ the best weapons. Swords, greatswords, maces.” He starts listing them off on his fingers as he goes. “Axes, greataxes, hammers…”

“Daggers,” Vax says instantly, and Vex snorts. She already guessed that Cassandra would be interested in teaching Elaina about daggers too. Vax and Cassandra have an interesting relationship, one Vex isn’t sure even they fully understand, but she knows that she would love to watch the two of them try to teach someone how to use daggers. If nothing else, she’d love to watch them bicker over the best techniques and drive each other crazy.

“Obviously, she’s gonna learn how to shoot a bow and arrow, right Vex?” Keyleth asks, resting her chin on her hand.

Vex snorts. “Of course. Do you really think _mine and Percy’s_ daughter isn’t going to learn how to shoot?”

“I bet she’ll be a natural,” Pike says happily.

“Well, I’m going to teach her _at least_ one instrument,” Scanlan declares proudly.

“Make one of them a weird instrument,” Vax says. “I want a niece that plays some obscure wind instrument from, like… Marquet or Wildmount or something.” He turns to look at Scanlan better. “You know anything like that?”

Scanlan raises an eyebrow. “Do _I_ know anything like that?”

Vax rolls his eyes. “Right, dumb question.”

“Who do you take me for, Vax?” the bard scoffs. “An amateur?”

“I admitted it was a dumb question, alright!” Vax says. “Let me live, Shorthalt.”

Vex’s gaze drifts over all of them, her heart full as she takes in her family all gathered around. She catches Percy in the back behind all of them and she blinks in surprise.

Percy is still frozen where he was last time she looked at him, cradling Elaina in his arms as he looks down at her. What she failed to notice as the others drew her attention to them was that at some point, tears have begun to roll silently down Percy’s face as he looks down at the little bundle-- his daughter, _their_ daughter-- that he holds like she’s the most precious thing he’s ever seen in his life.

“Oh, Percival darling,” Vex says softly, and the others all quiet and turn to look at what she’s noticed.

“Aww, Freddie,” Vax says with a soft little smile.

Keyleth rests a hand on Percy’s shoulder and squeezes.

Well, Vex thinks, this seems like something to tackle by themselves.

“The rest of you out for a moment,” she says, shooing them away with her hands. They all grumble but none of them seem dumb enough to argue with her after she just gave birth, so that’s good for everybody involved. Percy still stands in place looking utterly wrecked and more than a little lost. She holds out a hand and she watches his eyes slowly shift to it. “Husband,” she beckons teasingly, and he drifts towards her like a ghost.

He quietly tries to hand Elaina back to her and Vex laughs, holding her hands up. “Percy, you can keep holding her if you want. Do you want that?”

Percy, who seems beyond words, simply nods and clutches her back to his chest protectively. It’s kind of adorable, really.

She pats the bed next to her and he slowly sits down beside her.

“What’s wrong, darling?” she asks softly. “I’m not one to talk when it comes to crying when holding our daughter, but it seems like you have more than just that on your mind.”

“Nothing’s wrong. Literally nothing, this is… this is perfect.” He reaches up and rubs at his jawline, eyes flicking back and forth between his wife and his daughter. “I-- I just never thought I’d help make something this good.”

She stares at him uncomprehendingly for a moment before it clicks into place and she just quietly goes, “Oh, Percy.”

He gives a helpless little shrug. “I’m just so used to making guns and explosives and other awful, horrible things and… she’s not like that.”

“No,” she agrees softly. She reaches out and rests her hand on his bicep comfortingly. “You and I made something really beautiful, I think. We should be proud.” He nods a little bit and she smiles. “Our daughter, Percy. _Our daughter_.”

He does smile at that, reaching up to wipe at the tears streaming down his face with his sleeve.

Quietly, almost disbelievingly, he agrees, “Our daughter.”

* * *

Cassandra waits until the majority of the people have cleared out, just Vex and Percy in the room and Pike hovering around nearby, before she sneaks in as quiet as can be to see her new niece.

Vex actually has to nudge Percy to get him to let Cassandra hold Elaina, seemingly reluctant to let go of her. Cassandra, who’s never held a baby in her life because she was always the baby and later because of her unfortunate circumstances, seems more than a little lost when Percy hands Elaina off to her. She’s also quick to pass her back, which Percy seems grateful for, but Vex knows it’s less her being rude and more her not wanting to do something wrong while in unfamiliar territory.

Tary, for his part, manages to send a long letter lamenting the fact that he’s currently too busy to visit right away but will try to visit in the next week or so. She receives various other messages in the first two days: congratulations from Gilmore with an arcane mobile with bears that move as if they’re actually walking, a promise to visit from Kima and Allura. Even Syldor sends a short congratulations, which-- despite their slightly more mended relationship-- she cares much less about than the attached notes from Devana and Velora.

It’s at the end of the third day that Vex notices a problem.

Percy, the loving and doting husband and father he is, has barely slept for more than a handful of half hour intervals since Elaina was born. He jumps to take her from Vex so Vex can take care of herself while ignoring his own needs. Now, Vex is used to him not sleeping as much as he should and sometimes even forgetting to sleep, but even this is too much for her.

“Percy,” she says finally, all of them gathered in her room and chatting absently while Percy holds Elaina in the back. He looks up at her wearily, cradling Elaina close. “Don’t you think it’s time you get some sleep?”

“I’m fine,” he says instantly, and she wonders if he knows how dark the circles are under his eyes and how ruffled his hair would be if she hadn’t been fixing it every time he got close enough for her to do so.

“You haven’t slept in a while, Percy,” Keyleth points out, obviously concerned for her best friend.

Percy’s frown deepens. “I said I’m fine. I’m taking care of things so Vex can--”

Vex cuts him off. “Oh, no. Percival, I have slept and eaten plenty. Now it’s your turn.”

“Alright, show of hands! Who wants Percival to go the fuck to sleep?” Vax asks.

“Vax’ildan!” she snaps, and Vax recoils at her tone. “Watch your language around your niece! But yes, show of hands.”

Without hesitation everybody in the room raises a hand. (Keyleth raises two pointedly.) Percy scowls at them all, but is quickly distracted by the baby in his arms slowly reaching a tiny arm up. The room immediately cracks up except for Percy, who begins to scowl even more at all of them, although he pointedly doesn’t turn it on Vex or Elaina.

“Even Elaina agrees that you need to go to sleep,” Pike teases, but she’s already begun inching into no-nonsense Mama Pike mode by the way she looks at Percy.

“What?” he says, baffled. He looks between his daughter and the rest of his family. “She’s only a couple days old, she doesn’t understand! Her raising her hand was a coincidence.”

They ignore him.

“So we’re unanimous then,” Scanlan says.

“Looks like it,” Pike says.

“But--” Percy begins to protest, but Scanlan cuts him off.

“Don’t make me use Friends on you and _make_ you go to sleep Percy,” he shoots off.

“I will use Friends right back on you Scanlan Shorthalt,” Percy says with a scowl.

“And you’re smart enough to know that I will win,” Scanlan scoffs.

“Percy,” Vex says, and he turns to look at her instantly. “Come here, darling”

Percy, impossibly stubborn Percy, slowly trudges forward towards her because even when he refuses to listen to anyone else, he always listens to her. Scanlan makes a whip sound and Keyleth giggles behind her hands.

She curls her fingers into the collar of his shirt once he’s close enough and pulls him down so their noses are brushing, her voice soft and low so only he can hear. “This isn’t a dream or a trick, Percy. Elaina isn’t going to vanish into a puff of smoke as soon as you take your eyes off of her. She’ll be right here when you’re done sleeping.”

Percy’s eyes widen and yes, she’s definitely guessed his problem correctly. He looks as if he’s about to protest for a moment so she tightens her grip on his collar, a gentle warning, and he lets out a long sigh, his shoulders slumping. “I know, I know. I’m sorry, dear.”

She moves to cup his jaw and tilts his face down so she can kiss the tip of his nose. “You don’t have to be sorry, Percy. Just go get some sleep, okay? I love that you want to be here but even you can’t last this long without at least a nap.”

He sighs again. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she says, and shifts her hand so it’s resting against his cheek. “I love you.”

His tired blue eyes soften. “I love you too, dear.”

She holds her arms out and Percy slowly, _slowly_ gives Elaina to her, almost as if it’s physically painful for him to give her up.

Grog and Keyleth exchange glances, stepping together so they stand right behind Percy. Vex raises her eyebrow at them and Percy turns to look.

Percy regards them cooly, already guessing what they’re doing. “Really? You’re escorting me?”

Keyleth hooks her arm through his cheerily and reaches up to playfully boop him on the nose. He seems unimpressed. “I’m just going to make sure you actually make it to a bed without passing out!”

Grog flexes his muscles. “And I’m gonna hold you down and sit on you if I gotta.”

Keyleth’s smile widens. “I will absolutely grapple you with vines to help Grog if you don’t cooperate, though.”

Percy sighs. “Not cooperating seems like more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Good,” Vax says at the same time that Pike says, “Because it is!”

“Look at it this way, darling,” Vex says, and Percy practically snaps back around to give her his full attention at the sound of her voice. She smiles despite herself because she doesn’t think she’ll ever get over how cute that is. “The sooner you get a decent amount of sleep, the sooner these two will let you come back and hold Elaina.”

Percy instantly softens at that and she watches Pike and Vax make eye contact behind him and smirk at each other. “I-- yes, of course, dear.”

After Percy leaves the room, Vax says, “Alright, that man’s going to be a total pushover for that little girl the same way he is for you.”

“Absolutely,” Pike says with a grin.

Vex smiles fondly.

“This kid’s going to be the most spoiled thing,” Scanlan says with a smirk, looking down at Elaina.

“So,” Vax drawls. “What are the chances of him trying to sneak away early?”

“Oh, a hundred percent,” Pike says instantly.

“We’ll have to tear him away from them,” Scanlan agrees.

Vex just smiles down at Elaina.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a monster of a chapter and i don't _think_ they'll all be this long, but then again i didn't think this one would be this long either sooooo
> 
> also the brief mention of vex and percy's proposal story is actually another fic i wrote called ["i saw forever the moment i met you"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10803648) that could technically be considered a prequel to this but it absolutely isn't necessary to read first.
> 
> also shout-out to hani for the cute lil [doodle](https://twitter.com/hyperoats/status/871961488357027841)!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to [dancer4813](http://dancer4813.tumblr.com/) for proof-reading this chapter!!!
> 
> happy 100th episode, you guys!

The first year with Elaina passes quickly, quicker than either of them expected it to.

She’s a clever child and even at only a year old she seems to know that she has her father wrapped around her little finger. Frankly, Vex is almost impressed.

Summer is a gentle season for them. Elaina enjoys the warm weather, taking after Vex in that regard. Both of them and the rest of their friends take great joy in dressing her up in pretty summer clothes, Zahra and-- surprisingly, but somehow not-- Vax being the ones who send the most clothes, and additionally the most fashionable.

(“Tell your boyfriend I said thank you for the clothes,” Vex says one day after he brings some over, flicking through them happily.

Vax looks offended. “Shaun didn’t pick these out, I did.”

It took a long time, but the two had finally worked things out not long after Elaina was born. Seeing that happiness had been the kick he’d needed in order to finally commit to the future, Vax admitted after he told her.

But now, though-- she looks over the clothes her brother brought for Elaina: a bunch of bright lilacs and blues with a handful of white, gold, and silvers. Whitestone colors. She’s oddly touched, even if she assumed they were from Gilmore because of how bright and flowy they are.

“Okay, well if you can pick out cute, colorful clothes like this for my daughter, why can’t you do it for yourself?” she asks, amused.

Vax rolls his eyes. “You sound like Shaun now.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Elaina seems to enjoy the new clothes from her uncle.)

Vex and Percy are halfway through a rather lovely breakfast, her buttering fresh muffins for them while he feeds Elaina, when Percy suddenly chimes in with, “Oh, dear! I think she’s trying to say something new.”

Elaina’s been babbling for quite some time now. Vex can’t help but admit that she wasn’t surprised when her first word was _Dada_ \-- Elaina has been a daddy’s girl since the moment she was born and hasn’t been shy about it.

(Percy may have teared up the first time he heard it. And the second time. And-- well, for quite a few times after that.)

 _Mama_ came not long after it though, so at least she didn’t feel too left out.

“Is she?” she asks, setting down the muffin she’s been buttering so she can walk over and crouch down next to where Percy’s sitting at the table, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“I think so,” Percy says excitedly. “Elaina, try it again for your mama.”

“Come on, darling,” she coos, leaning against Percy’s side.

Elaina babbles for a moment while the two of them encourage her, and finally she says something-- not just a vague jumble of sounds that end up similar to a word or phrase, but a clearly enunciated word.

They both freeze.

“Did she just say--” Vex starts.

“No, no, it just sounded like it,” Percy reassures, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

Except then Elaina says it again.

“Alright, I know this seems bad,” Percy begins slowly, and Vex is already so far beyond bad.

“I’m going to kill them,” she whispers, because she already knows the only two people who could possibly be responsible for this.

“Please don’t kill anybody before noon,” he begs, but Vex has already dropped the butter knife she’d been holding onto the table-- and a look of relief flickers across her husband’s face at that-- and is walking toward the foyer.

She opts for finding her brother first. Grog is out of town in Vasselheim at the moment and she’ll confront him later. With that in mind, Vax is in town on a visit and makes the most obvious first target.

A quick couple of words with a guard and a maid (trying her best to reel in her temper because they aren’t who she’s angry with) leads her to the information of Vax having tea with his sister-in-law this morning, something the two have taken to doing more and more often now.

She throws open the doors of Cassandra’s office, the heavy wood slamming against the wall. Vax, seated across from Cassandra with a tea set between them, promptly spews tea all over himself while Cass’s eyebrows shoot up, scooting her chair back as far away from the twins as possible with a look of sheer nope on her face.

“VAX’ILDAN, DID YOU TEACH MY DAUGHTER HOW TO SAY THE WORD ‘FUCK’?”

“What?” Vax sputters, looking frantically between her and the mess he’s just made all over himself and Cassandra’s desk.

She stalks towards him and Vax, as used to her as he is, still recoils slightly at the intensity of her. She sticks her finger in his face and hisses, “Elaina just said ‘fuck’ at breakfast this morning.”

“Why are you blaming me?!”

“Because you and Grog are the only ones who forget to watch your fucking language around her!”

“Says the woman who just used the word fucking just now!”

“I’m not a fucking baby and I’m not around one right now, asshole!” And because she’s pissed and petty, she picks one of the scones off his plate-- “Hey!”-- and throws it right at him. It bounces off his forehead harmlessly but he squints at her with such an offended look that you’d think she’d shot him with one of her arrows.

“What the fuck, Vex, are we children now?” he demands. It doesn’t stop him from picking the other scone up and throwing it directly at her chest.

She squeals in outrage as it hits, crumbling all over the front of her newly washed shirt. “No, but Elaina is!”

They squabble for a few more minutes, Vax at one point attempting to shove another scone into her cleavage while she tugs at his hair. Eventually they fall apart from each other, the two of them staring each other down while huffing, covered in crumbs.

Satisfied that she made her point, she brushes herself off and promptly turns to the young woman still sitting on the other side of the desk.

“I am so sorry for the intrusion, Cass,” Vex apologizes sincerely to her sister-in-law, leaning down to pick the scones scattered across the floor up in napkins and folding them up on Vax’s plate.

Cassandra, for her part, looks more than a little stunned at the entire thing. It really speaks to the gravity of the situation, considering Cassandra’s job revolves around remaining cool, calm, and collected at all times. As it is, she looks completely out of her depth at the twins’ scuffle. Her and Percy argue, of course, and Vex has seen them get petty but her and Vax are an entirely different kind of sibling pettiness that goes hand in hand with being a twin.

“Uh, you’re fine,” Cass says, still looking at them with both bewilderment and amusement. “Perhaps try to avoid pastry casualties in the future.”

 _“Pastry casualties?”_ Vax repeats incredulously. “What about _me_ , Cass? Your poor brother-in-law who was just viciously attacked?”

They both ignore him.

“I’ll send over some little cakes from the bakery to make it up to you,” Vex says, and she can’t help but smile at the way Cass’s face lights up with an almost childlike glee at the thought.

“That would be lovely, Vex,” Cass responds earnestly. “Thank you so much!”

Vex waves her hand dismissively as she begins to back out of the room. “Oh, don’t worry about it! Sorry, again dear.” She flicks her eyes to her brother. “And if I hear _you_ swear around your niece again I will do far worse than throw a few scones at you.”

She closes the door right as Vax throws his hands up in the air and goes, “Really? Fucking really?”

* * *

In the kitchen of the third house of Whitestone, Percy sits completely baffled as to what just transpired and what’s currently happening. Elaina babbles softly at him, blissfully unaware of her mother’s rampage across the city.

“Well, pup,” Percy says slowly, blinking rapidly as he tries to clear his mind, “I think either way, you’re going to be down an uncle by the end of the day.”

She reaches out for him and he lifts a hand to her, lets her wrap her tiny hands around a few of his fingers as she happily repeats _Dada_ over and over as she looks at him. Trinket, who’d watched Vex run out of the house in a fury but not followed-- since Elaina was born, he’s been nearly inseparable from the little girl-- slowly lifts his head up and rests it on Percy’s lap, dark eyes looking between both de Rolos.

Percy gives the old bear a few scratches behind the ear with his free hand, still letting his daughter hold onto his other. Elaina’s attention shifts as Trinket comes into view, her babbling becoming even more excited and she lets go of Percy, reaching out for Trinket instead. Trinket immediately moves forward so she can push her little hands into the coarse fur on his head. Elaina squeals in delight and Percy can’t help but smile at that. Like mother, like daughter.

“Do you like bears, Lainy?” he asks, his voice dropping down into that tone that he only ever uses when it’s just him and Elaina-- the quiet, slightly high-pitched lilt that draws her eyes back to him. He reaches out to give Trinket another scratch and he rumbles in approval. “You like bears?”

“Baba,” Elaina says-- or, at least that’s what Percy thinks she says. He blinks. “Baba!” she says again, looking back down at Trinket with a big smile.

Well, that’s a new one. She’s clearly latched onto bears, which shouldn’t be all that surprising.

“Oh, Elaina,” he says with a little sigh, although there’s amusement in it. “Why couldn’t you have said that for your mother instead?”

Elaina simply babbles her new word over and over again as she pats the bear in front of her.

* * *

Another year passes. Elaina somehow manages to become even more adorable-- although Vex may be a bit biased-- and continues to be an exceptional child in every sense of the word. Her language skills in particular evolve immensely, no doubt helped along by the sheer amount of reading Vex and Percy do for her and the rich variety of people she’s around in her first two years.

(Vex is pleased to note that Vax and Grog both watch their language around Elaina much more. Luckily, any problem words seem to phase out of her vocabulary eventually.)

She waddles after Percy as he walks, clinging to his leg or hiding beneath his coat if he walks slow enough for her-- which he usually does eventually, once he notices her. It’s hard not to, not when she exclaims “Daddy!” every time she sees him, even if it’s just him seeing her in the morning or him just leaving the room and coming back. Vex thinks it’s adorable and, frankly, she can’t even be bothered that Elaina clearly has a favorite parent when it’s this cute.

Percy, for his part in it, continues to be baffled and awestruck by the whole thing after two years. He smiles more with Elaina than Vex has ever seen him smile. He lifts her up onto his workbench and lets her watch him take things apart and put them back together-- he baby-proofs his workshop, makes sure anything dangerous is put away safely where she can’t reach it and only works with simple projects and tools when she’s there, of course-- and Elaina is _fascinated_ by it.

“She’s going to be a tinkerer like her father,” Vex teases him one day as she leans her chin on his shoulder while watching him work too, the three of them together in the little workshop in the basement of her house.

He laughs. “Hopefully she’ll use her skills for good, _unlike_ her father.”

Vex frowns at that, wrapping her arms around his. Even after all these years, he still is so hard on himself for what he created. It hurts her. “You have used your skills for good.”

“I don’t really--” he starts, but she silences him by leaning up to plant a kiss against his lips. He stills for a split second before he relaxes into it, warm and familiar.

She pulls back after a moment and rests her forehead against his, her eyes open and watching him even though his are closed. “Don’t argue with me on this, Percy. We both know you’ll lose. If you come up with fifty reasons why you’re a bad man, I’ll come up with a hundred reasons why you’re a good one.”

He lets out a long sigh and opens his eyes, his expression shifting until it’s impossibly gentle. “Yes, dear.”

“And you’re a good husband and a good father.”

“Well, now you’re just flattering me.”

“I am. You deserve it.”

“Quite frankly, my dear, all of those things are because of you.”

“Mmm, of course you wouldn’t be a good father without me, considering I’m pretty sure I played a pretty critical role in the entire process of you entering fatherhood to begin with.” He snorts at that. “Same for being a good husband, although I don’t think I can claim total responsibility for you being a good man.”

“You can easily claim at least partial credit.”

“Fine,” she relents with an eyeroll. “But there was good in you long before I met you and there will continue to be good in you for the rest of your life regardless of my influence.”

He steals another kiss, her eyelids fluttering shut for the split second their lips brush. When he draws back he’s smiling softly. “I hope to continue having your good influence for a long time.”

She smirks. “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

Next to them, Elaina has begun reaching for the screwdriver Percy’s been working with as he fixed her toy. He jumps to attention, grabbing it before she can get her hands on it. She looks up at him with obvious disappointment in her wide brown eyes.

“No, no! Elaina, you know not to grab Daddy’s tools!” Percy clutches it tightly, out of her grasp.

Vex rests her chin on his shoulder as she watches him and Elaina. “Maybe you and Tary could, like, make her her own toy tools or something. You know, baby’s first tinkerer’s tools?”

Percy snorts but his eyes glimmer as he seems to think it over. “I think she’d like that, actually.”

“That’s why I suggested it,” she says teasingly, kicking her legs up so they’re over Percy’s and she’s practically in his lap.

He turns his attention back to her with a raised eyebrow and a smile. “Hello, Vex. Do you think you’re close enough?” He wraps an arm loosely around her nonetheless.

“No, but I’m making due.” She snuggles closer for emphasis, reaching out a hand towards Elaina. Elaina smiles widely at her and grabs onto her, looking happily between her parents.

Percy sighs dramatically but she knows when he’s actually annoyed and this is not it, his entire demeanor relaxed and fond. “I hope I’m as good of a chair as you think I am a husband and father.”

Vex laughs, wiggling until she’s straight up sitting on his lap. “You’re a wonderful chair, darling. Very warm, very comfortable. Maybe a little boney. Definitely a little chatty for a chair, though.”

He presses a kiss against her hairline. “I’m sure I’m the most endearing one you’ve ever had.”

“That’s why I married you.”

“Because of my abilities as a chair?”

“Yup.”

“Seems fair.”

She spends the next hour watching him finish fixing the toy he’d been working on and smiles to herself when he starts jotting down notes for a set of children’s tools.

* * *

“You seem like you enjoy having children,” Cassandra says absently a few weeks later as they have tea together, drawing circles against the surface of her desk with her finger.

Vex laughs, a little caught off guard at the topic being brought up. “It kind of surprised me at first, but yeah. Yeah, I really do.”

“And so does Percy.”

“And so does Percy,” Vex agrees. “Well, I mean you’ve seen him with Elaina.”

“I have,” Cassandra says, a small smile on her face. “He’s so happy when he’s with her-- when he’s with both of you.”

Vex snorts. “I should hope so, he did marry me and he is the father of my child.”

Cass runs her tongue over her bottom lip and begins worrying it between her teeth. “So you would say parenthood has made you two happier?”

“I suppose?” Vex raises an eyebrow. “Not that I don’t enjoy talking about how happy Percy and Elaina make me, but it seems like you’re trying to work up to something here. What are you getting at, Cass?”

Her sister-in-law clears her throat. “What I’m trying to get at here, politely--”

Vex waves her off. “Please, we’re friends. Drop the politeness and say what you need to.”

Cass looks at her for a moment before she sighs. “The council is insistent that you and Percival conceive another child.”

Vex chokes on her tea.

“This was why I was trying to be polite,” Cass says apologetically, handing her a handkerchief. Vex takes it gratefully.

“Why does the council care about us having more children?”

“I know it must seem intrusive, especially for somebody who grew up outside of this kind of lifestyle, but this is all very commonplace. The fact of the matter is that while the members of the de Rolo family are no longer the rulers of Whitestone, we are very much still the figureheads of this city. It’s important that the de Rolo bloodline continues, especially after we had such a close call so recently.”

Something in her stomach drops. So recently. It’s easy to forget that what happened with the Briarwoods and the rest of the de Rolo family is still so fresh, especially now that the remaining family and the city have healed so much in such a short time.

“Alright,” Vex says slowly, now looking Cassandra over warily. “Well, Percy and I already have Elaina.”

“Of course, however there is a saying among nobility.” Cassandra looks almost apologetic as she says it: “An heir and a spare.”

“I don’t like that,” she says instantly, and it’s impossible to mask the revulsion she feels at the thought.

“I know,” Cassandra soothes instantly, reaching out to touch Vex’s hand. “It’s not my words, just the popular saying.”

“If I have children, I don’t want it to be because of some sort of duty. That’s no reason to have a child.” She shakes her head. “If I have children, I want to have them because I want them. I would owe them that much, at least.”

“Of course,” Cass agrees, and her eyes are not unkind as she looks at her. She seems to hesitate for a moment, glancing off to the side and biting her lip before looking back to Vex. “I will say that, speaking as a spare, despite its many flaws the concept is not without its truths. Percival and I are proof of that.”

That hits Vex like a punch to the gut. What she says is true, of course. If Johanna and Frederick had stopped after they had Julius, there would be no Cassandra, no Percy, and because of that no-- her heart skips a beat-- no Elaina.

“I-- I suppose that’s true,” she admits.

Cassandra holds up her hands. “I’m not saying you and Percy _have_ to have another child, especially since this troubles you. I would never force you into something like this, and if you decide not to I will politely but firmly tell the council to go fuck themselves.” Vex snorts despite herself. She always has enjoyed when Cass loosened up enough with her to drop formality. “However, I will say that perhaps you and my brother could take this as an opportunity to consider the possibility of other children, if nothing else. Don’t think of them as spares, think of them as the children they’d actually be. Don’t think of it politically, think of it as two people in love who are looking within themselves for what they want in their future.”

“That is… a very reasonable suggestion when you put it like that.” Vex sighs, long and deep. “You have quite a way of framing things, Cass.”

“It’s why I’m still playing the role I’ve been playing even after all these years,” she says with a small smile, seemingly relieved that Vex hasn’t taken offense to her suggestion. “I have to be at least moderately good at what I do, or else the council would make sure to find somebody else better suited for the role.”

“You are beyond amazing,” Vex reassures, because it’s true, although she’s still caught on Cassandra’s words.

Well, this will certainly be a conversation to have with Percy.

Vex shakes her head, committing to spending quality time with her sister-in-law and also pushing that particular topic as far away as possible right now.

“So, speaking of you being beyond amazing,” Vex drawls, tracing circles against the tabletop with her pointer finger. Cass raises an eyebrow at her as she lifts her teacup to take a sip. “I don’t suppose anybody interesting has taken notice of that fact?”

Cassandra proceeds to go bright red behind her teacup. Like her brother, Cassandra’s pale de Rolo complexion does her no favors in hiding her embarrassment. She clears her throat and sets her teacup down, bashfully avoiding Vex’s eyes. “I, ah, I suppose. We’ve received many new proposals since you last asked from lords on their sons’ behalfs or, despite their age, on their own behalf.”

Vex can’t help the little surge of protectiveness she feels course through her at the words. Cassandra is both a formidable leader and woman, however that doesn’t change the fact that she’s only a few years past her second decade. She’s still young despite all that she’s seen and the thought of these men trying to wed her despite pushing forty, fifty, sometimes older-- well, she’s more than a little revolted if she’s being honest. She knows it’s not unheard of or even uncommon among nobility, but like with many things normalized to nobles-- _heir and a spare_ a voice in the back of her head whispers-- Vex finds that she’s really, really not comfortable with it.

“You’ve said no to all of them, of course,” Vex says.

“Of course,” Cass responds instantly, waving her hand. “None of them would really bring much to Whitestone in terms of political marriage. And, ah, besides that, none of them are really--”

“None of them are really your type,” Vex finishes, because of course she knows.

Cassandra nods. “Exactly.”

“Well, good for you.” She nods firmly, satisfied. After a moment, a mischievous smile spreads across her face. “Although, I am curious… that diplomat’s daughter from the last ball.” Cassandra promptly starts to redden again. “You know the one.”

“I do,” Cass slowly agrees, fidgeting with the collar of her dress. And oh, how lovely de Rolos are when it comes to love, Vex thinks happily.

“Have you kept in contact with her? You two seemed quite… bewitched with each other.”

Cassandra’s flush deepens and she blinks rapidly, gaze hovering off to the side. Bashfully, she admits, “We have… exchanged letters.”

Vex claps her hands together in delight. “Oh, how wonderful!”

A timid smile spreads across Cass’s face. “Yes, I suppose it is, isn’t it?”

“You simply must invite her back here sometime.”

“Oh! Well, ah,” Cassandra, cool and collected Cassandra, seems to be floundering now, “I-- I don’t really know if that’s the best idea. I have no idea if she’s even interested beyond friendship-- or how to properly court a lady, for that matter--”

Vex waves her off. “My dear, speaking from experience here: you de Rolos are very, very good at accidentally making women fall in love with you _very_ easily.” She wiggles her fingers on the hand with the ring on it. “And please, anybody with eyes could see how charmed she was by you.”

Cassandra laughs, embarrassed. “Well, I don’t know about that--”

“Trust me, I know the look of a woman who’s been charmed because _I’ve_ been charmed.”

After a moment Cass seems to recompose herself, clearing her throat. “Do you-- do have any advice--?”

Vex grins fondly, thinking over her own courtship with her husband. Well, she uses the term courtship loosely. She doesn’t even think they were trying to court each other intentionally, simply flirting with no expectation of it becoming reality and being the emotional crutch the other needed because they were friends-- and they still are friends, she thinks it’s important to note. Sure, Tary has the official title of her best friend despite their distance and Vax is her other half, but Percy is her best friend too, and that doesn’t change just because they’re in love.

Finally, Vex says, “Honestly, dear, I wouldn’t recommend following in your brother’s footsteps when it comes to courtship, not for the most part. It makes things far too dramatic and dangerous and, frankly, emotionally exhausting for everybody involved. That said, I do think you can take one aspect of mine and Percival’s courtship to heart: become her friend, Cass.”

Cass looks at her shyly, playing with the sleeves of her dress. “Really?”

She nods. “In my humble opinion, romance isn’t worth it if you aren’t friends with your other half. I don’t mean you have to have a long, drawn-out dance around each other where you two become friends and flesh that friendship out before you even consider acting on romantic feelings--” Vex rolls her eyes, thinking of her own dance with Percy. “- but I’m saying you should try to befriend her while you work on the romantic aspect of your relationship. Get to know her, have fun; don’t just jump into a super serious, intensely romantic relationship without knowing you can get along and enjoy each other's company too. Frankly, passionate romantic fire is no fun if you can’t make each other laugh. It’s the little things, you know?”

Cass seems to consider that for a long moment before she slowly nods. “Alright. I will keep that in mind.” She laughs softly. “I feel awful, I must admit. Here I am, just after telling you about the council trying to make decisions for you and instead of reassuring you, I’m sitting here letting you give me advice about my love life.”

Vex smiles, leaning forward in her seat so she can reach across the desk and pat the younger woman’s hand reassuringly. “If I had a problem with this, I think we both know I’d tell you.”

“That’s fair,” Cass admits. “You aren’t exactly shy about expressing your discomfort or dislike of a situation.” Quickly, she adds, “Which is something I enjoy and respect about you! Many people, especial women, _especially_ noble women, are all too willing to sit back and endure uncomfortable things because it’s what’s expected of them.” She hesitates. “I know I sometimes am guilty of it.”

Vex squeezes her hand. “Don’t worry about it, darling, as am I.” When Cass raises an eyebrow at her quizzically she laughs. “Cass, I feel comfortable enough with you to be upfront about any issues I have now, but when we first met-- especially when Percy and I were first together and the three of us had yet to have an, ah, official discussion about it, I was terrified of you.”

Cassandra looks baffled. “Why? I was barely nineteen when we first met and had no idea what I was doing-- and I still don’t, for that matter, but I’ve gotten better at faking like I have a clue.”

Vex grins. “You are very intimidating, dear. You always have been, even when you were that young. It didn’t help that I was terrified of accidentally making my new boyfriend’s sister who’s also technically my boss hate me.”

Cass blinks and smiles softly at that, brushing back a stray bit of hair that’s fallen loose from her bun behind her ear. Elaina will look just like her, Vex realizes suddenly as she looks at her sister-in-law. Elaina is almost all de Rolo, save for the darker complexion, dark eyes, bushier hair, and slightly pointed ears. Besides that, she’s clearly Percy’s daughter and Cassandra’s niece. Well, Vex thinks, if Elaina ends up even half as beautiful as her aunt then she will certainly be breaking some hearts when she’s older.

* * *

Percy is sitting at the little desk in their bedroom pouring over a heavy book when she comes home. He barely even notices her come in, too absorbed in his reading. He only acknowledges her when she rests her hand on his shoulder, looking up at her with a big smile.

“Welcome home, dear,” he says, reaching up to rest a hand over hers.

She smiles back at him a little nervously, playing over what she wants to ask him again and again in the back of her mind. Well, she’ll just… build up to it, right? “Hi. What did you do today?”

He gestures vaguely at the book in front of him. “Mostly reading today. I did a lot of paperwork earlier, but that’s been done awhile.”

She perches next to him on the arm of his chair, pushing a hand into his white hair. “Where’s Elaina?”

“Pike offered to take her for a while,” he says, wrapping an arm around her waist and tugging until she topples backwards into his lap. Giddy laughter bubbles up from her as he peppers kisses across her face, arms tightening around her as he holds her against him. “It’s just you and me for a while.”

Ah. Well, usually she’d be ecstatic for some her and Percy time, especially now that Elaina takes up most of their time not devoted to their duties as nobles, but with Cassandra’s conversation rattling around in the back of her head it’s hard to ignore it.

He seems to sense her nerves when she doesn’t respond and he frowns. “Are you alright?”

She bites down on her lip. “I need to ask you something.” When his expression clouds with worry she quickly puts a hand against his chest. “It’s-- it’s not bad, I don’t think.”

And she doesn’t think it is, truly. But it’s a big question, an important topic that will play a big part in shaping their future both as individuals and as a couple-- and Elaina’s life, for that matter, and even the lives of the rest of their family.

“Oh. Uh, okay.” He rests his forehead against hers. “Well, you know you can ask me anything, dearest.”

“Do you want more children?” Vex asks bluntly, because she’s not sure how to do her usual dance of words around a topic like this.

Percy blinks, drawing back to look at her. “Wow, I, ah-- this was not what I expected you to ask.”

“If it makes you feel better, I wasn’t expecting to ask you this when I woke up this morning either,” she admits.

After a long moment, Percy lets out a deep sigh. “Someone from the council talked to you, didn’t they?”

She blinks in surprise. “Well, your sister. So technically yes. Why? Did they talk to you too?”

He shakes his head. “No, but I can’t say I’m entirely shocked that it’s come up.”

“By ‘it’, do you mean ‘heirs and spares’?” she asks.

Percy visibly winces. “I don’t like that phrase.”

It’s so simple, but just that makes her feel so much better.

“I don’t either,” she admits.

“And I don’t like-- Vex, I don’t like the forced obligation it puts on us, and especially on you, to do something that big with our lives just because it’s seen as our duty.” He runs his tongue over his bottom lip. “You know that I would never force you to do something like that, right?”

She immediately cups his face in her hands and presses their foreheads together again. “Of course, darling, of course I know that. You said as much the first time when we talked before Elaina.”

“I know, I just want to make it clear that you don’t-- we don’t have to do this if we don’t think we want it, if it’s not right for us.”

She snorts despite herself. “Yeah, good luck getting me to do anything I don’t want to.”

He chuckles, leaning in for a soft kiss. She smiles a little when he does, melting into it. His arms tighten around her, mouth warm and familiar against her. She pulls back to press a kiss against his cheek, then one on his other one. He looks at her fondly as she peppers him with kisses.

Finally, he says, “So.”

“So,” she repeats, resting her forehead against his again.

“No dancing around it like we always do. Where do you think we stand on more children?”

She sighs deeply. “Honestly? I would… like more children. But only if we agree we’re doing this because we want more kids, not because we want spares or whatever.”

He nods. “That’s where I stand too.”

Vex pulls back and smiles at him a little timidly. “Okay. So it sounds like we’re in agreement then.”

“More kids,” he says, raising an eyebrow and shaking his head a little as he thinks that over. “Wow. So we’re going to do this.”

“We are,” she agrees, and a little rush of… giddiness? Floods her body.

Suddenly he gives her a wry little grin. “I don’t suppose this sounds all too alluring, but how do you feel about starting now?”

Amused by the sudden shift, she pretends to think it over for a moment. “I’ve heard worse,” she says finally, her face breaking into a grin of her own. “How long did you say Pike would watch Elaina?”

“A few more hours,” he responds, those clever hands of his already under her shirt and trailing up towards her breastband.

“Mmm, so enough time to get started and have a quick nap.” She starts popping the buttons on his shirt, one by one until she gets impatient and just rips the last few apart, sending buttons scattering across the bedroom floor. He laughs at that, helping her tug her own shirt over her head before allowing her to push the open shirt off of him so it falls to the ground in a pool of fabric.

“I don’t know about that nap, could be busy right up until the last minute.” He moves his hands to her waist and tugs her closer, Vex taking the hint and throwing one of her legs over the side so she’s properly straddling him now.

“Such faith in your own abilities,” she says with a smile, leaning forward to steal a kiss. 

“Nothing I haven’t proved to you over and over again during the years.” He nips at her bottom lip and suddenly her desire for banter goes out the window.

“Mmmmm, darling. Less talking, more banging.”

He laughs. “How eloquent.”

She kisses him again, harder this time, and Percy definitely talks much, much less for the next couple of hours.

* * *

It doesn’t happen right away and Vex finds herself surprised at how disappointed she is. They managed to have Elaina completely on accident-- a lovely accident, but an accident nonetheless-- but here they are actively trying to conceive a child and it’s just not working.

“Sometimes you just won’t know,” Pike says one day, checking her over. Vex shivers when Pike lays her hands on her stomach before they warm with divine golden light as it pours from her fingers. She squeezes down on Vax’s hand at the sudden temperature shift-- Vax in town and deciding to accompany her to her latest checkup-- and he squeezes back.

“Ugh!” Vex glares, not at Pike or Vax but up at the ceiling. “I’m so sick of not knowing. I want to know-- and I want to know soon.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple, sis,” Vax says dryly.

“Obviously,” she grumbles.

“You can’t force it,” Pike says, giving an apologetic little shrug as she pulls her hand away from her stomach. No luck. “It’ll happen when it happens.”

“We’re trying really hard, Pike. Gods, we’re trying _so hard_. Do have any idea how much time we spend banging?” she asks, and Vax scowls at her before he releases her hand and leaves the room. Vex rolls her eyes before she continues. “Like, a lot. A lot for two parents with a toddler. Honestly, I’m almost bored of sex at this point. _Me. Bored of sex._ ”

“I mean,” Pike grins and gives a good-natured shrug. “I guess keep going at it whenever you get the chance?”

“Keyleth even brought us a type of tea that’s meant to improve fertility. Nothing!”

“Well,” Pike says, “eventually it’s gotta stick.”

“Sure,” she says, more than a little miserable as she slumps in her chair.

* * *

And stick it does.

The nausea is obnoxious and oh so familiar, and when she gets it for the third time that week she’s ecstatic-- well, as ecstatic as somebody who is perpetually queasy can be. She waits a few days to go to Pike about it, sick to death of getting excited when they have a hunch only for Pike to tell them it’s just a regular baught of morning nausea, not related to children. But after three days of it constantly she lets herself get excited again.

She grabs Percy by the front of his shirt when he comes over to check on her, to hold her hair back for her the way he’s done for years now, and he startles. “Percy,” she says excitedly, as if she wasn’t just vomiting a moment ago.

“Vex,” he says, a little bemused as he reaches up to put a hand over the one on his shirt.

“I think it’s happening.”

His eyes go wide, a pleased grin spreading over his face. She could kiss him for the way he looks at her-- with such utter fondness and joy-- and she almost does before she suddenly remembers that her mouth is, uh, not the freshest.

Percy kisses her on the forehead instead, and that’s nearly as good, she decides.

* * *

When they finally go in for it, Pike’s little room that she’s been operating out of for these visits is crammed full. Their family is everywhere in the room, across every surface. Vex sits on the bed, Percy at her side and Vax behind her sitting criss-cross.

Vex crosses her arms. “I swear, you guys don’t have to be here for this.”

“Sounds fake,” Scanlan says, scooting right up next to her.

Keyleth had immediately gathered anybody outside of town and brought them back for this-- save for Tary, Vex thinks sadly, who was too wrapped up in business to be able to leave comfortably.

(“Yeah, he said something about making sure I let you know that he was going to build a bunch of things to make it up to you,” Keyleth told her.

“Oh, he doesn’t have to do that!” Vex exclaimed.

Keyleth gave a shrug and a little smile. “He also said you’d say that, and he told me to tell you, and I quote, ‘only the best for my nieces and nephews and if you want to argue with me, you can teleport over here and do it in person’. He also said that if you come to fight him, you have to bring Percy and Elaina.”

“I think Tary’s trying to get me to bring the family for brunch,” she mused.)

Pike wiggles her fingers and little sparks of divine energy course around them, twining up and between almost like vines. “So are we ready?”

“I have been ready for _months_ ,” Vex says. “Give me good news, Pike.”

The little cleric laughs, stepping up to start. “I’ll try my best.”

Like most magic like this, it doesn’t take long for Pike to get answers-- and although it’s certainly not her specialty or something she does regularly, Pike’s good at what she does even without magic, so that definitely helps.

Finally Pike’s eyes widen, her lips parting slightly as she pulls her hand back. “Wow. Well, that’s certainly a thing.”

“What?” Vex blinks at her, tilting her head to one side. A shock of anxiety shoots through her. “Is something wrong?”

Pike waves her hand quickly and dismissively. “Oh, oh no! Nothing like that! Everything is fine! Great, in fact!”

“You seem surprised,” Vax observes slowly, squeezing Vex’s shoulders reassuringly.

“Well, it’s definitely a surprise,” Pike says.

Vex raises an eyebrow. “If the surprise is that it’s a kid, that’s not really a surprise Pike. That’s why we’re all here. I kind of already guessed that.”

“Oh, no.” Pike points at Percy. “Okay, well, fair warning, somebody should probably hold onto him.”

Percy looks at her in confusion but Vex reaches back to grab his hand anyways.

Pike gives a little smile. “Twins.”

The group falls dead silent.

Percy, already the pale as the moon, proceeds to become even paler. He freezes in place, stiff as a board as he stares wide-eyed at Pike.

Vex, meanwhile, laughs.

She laughs and Vax echoes her, the hand on her shoulder tightening almost painfully as he practically doubles over from it. The rest of the group follows them after a moment, but the twins-- the _original_ twins she thinks to herself as she loses her shit, one hand gently resting on her stomach-- are by far the loudest. Vax slides a fist down into her vision and she instantly bumps her own against his.

Poor Percy still looks like he’s going to faint. Vex manages to pull herself together long enough to squeeze the hand she’s holding reassuringly and feels him squeeze back, endearingly weakly, and she starts losing it again, leaning into Percy’s side.

“We’re all going to be uncles and aunts,” Keyleth whispers in awe, more to herself than to the others.

Vex sniffles as she tries to compose herself again, wiping away the tears forming in her eyes and taking a shuddering breath. “You’re already an aunt, dear.”

“But now I’m going to be an aunt to _three_ babies,” she says, grinning dreamily.

Scanlan whistles. “Vex, you’re really squeezing me for all I’m worth, aren’t you? That’s two new songs I have to write now.”

“You can just write one, they are twins,” Vax suggests.

“They’re also two different people,” Vex points out. Vax shrugs.

“Please, Vax, I’m not an amateur. These kids are each getting their own song,” Scanlan says with a roll of his eyes.

“Holy shit,” Keyleth says suddenly, slamming one hand on Vax’s shoulder and one on Scanlan’s. “You guys, I just realized. Vex has two--”

“- profiderolos in the oven,” Scanlan finishes, face lighting up with glee.

“We are not referring to my children as profiderolos,” Vex cuts in, but she’s grinning widely.

“It’s a wonderful staple of The Slayer’s Cake brand, Vex, there’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Pike says with a laugh.

“It’s too late, it’s stuck. They’re profiderolos now.” Vax smiles but there are little tears in the corners of his eyes now that she’s looking closer. Ever the emotional brother and uncle.

“So Vex,” Scanlan drawls. “Twins, huh? You’ll be halfway to a baker’s dozen in no time.”

“No!” She laughs loudly. “That’s too many! I’m perfectly happy with three.”

They all chatter excitedly to themselves and Vex leans over to rest her chin on Percy’s shoulder. He startles, glancing down at her as she looks up at him through her eyelashes.

“So,” she says with a grin. “Twins.”

He opens his mouth, closes it without saying anything, then tries again. “Twins,” is all he finally says.

She snorts, reaching up to push her fingers into the short hair at the back of his neck as she leans forward and kisses him hard. His hand slowly settles between them on her stomach, a gentle touch as he seems to solidify the concept of more children-- _twins_ \-- in his head, and tries to make it reality. He’s dazed as he kisses her back.

It’s cute, Vex decides as she melts into him. It’s so cute seeing him thrown for a loop like this. Usually Percy’s only knocked off-kilter like this when it’s bad news, and this is… this is the opposite of bad news.

She relishes moments like these where she gets to see facets of him that don’t come out very often, especially when they don’t come out very often because of good things.

And this is a very, very good thing.

* * *

For the most part, the months progress much smoother than the first time. There’s still the anxiety, of course, but she doubts that will ever go away. And besides, Vex finds that many of the unnecessary and irrational fears that she was practically drowning in with Elaina have disappeared between then and now. Percy seems much better too, although he still seems to be in perpetual disbelief at how he’s gotten so lucky-- she doubts that will vanish any time soon.

Vax slams his palm against the kitchen table one morning when the three of them and Elaina are all having breakfast in the manor, staring down Percy with a grin. “So, Freddie.”

Percy, dabbing at Elaina’s face with a napkin to do damage control as she shovels eggs into her mouth at an impressive pace, turns to squint at him warily. “Vax?”

“I propose a bet,” Vax says, knowing full-well that his brother-in-law rarely backs down from a challenge.

Percy, curiosity predictably piqued because of the competitive nature he still has with Vax after all these years, perks up-- warily, however, because he’s well aware that many of Vax’s bets come with an unpredicted consequences.

“So, a little information gathering before this. What are your thoughts on naming your first son Percival Whatever the Fourth?”

Percy’s eyes narrow, obviously confused. “Well, my thoughts are ‘no’.”

“C’mon,” Vax practically whines, leaning forward so he’s closer to Percy’s face. “Percy, you’re just asking for a fourth Percival!”

“I’m… not fond of the concept of naming a child after myself,” he responds slowly, frowning. “It feels arrogant and full of oneself, even to me.”

“Your name is literally already like that,” Vax points out.

“Yes,” Percy says dryly, “but my father didn’t name me after himself-- at least not the first name. I’m fine with family names-- obviously,” he gestures as Elaina, “but I wouldn’t willingly name my child after me.”

No doubt in part because he doesn’t like himself very much, even after all of these years, Vex thinks with a touch of sadness as she looks at her husband.

“Alright,” Vax says, threading his fingers together and cracking his knuckles. Vex winces the way she always does when he does that. “This is where the bet comes in.”

That catches both Percy and Vex’s interest.

“If I win, you name your firstborn son Percival the Fourth. If you win, you get to name my firstborn child-- within reason and with Shaun’s blessing for the chosen name, of course, because I’m not an animal.”

“You thinking of having kids?” Vex asks excitedly before Percy can respond.

Vax’s grin widens. “I mean, sure. Plenty of kids out there who could use parents. And we all know how prone I am to taking in strays, so why not take it a step further and make one of those strays official?”

“Wait,” Vex says, nearly standing now. “Are you going to get _married_ soon?”

“Um,” Percy cuts in before Vax can answer, holding up a finger. They turn back to him. “First of all, this is stupid.”

“Yes,” Vax agrees.

“Second, I absolutely will not name my son something without Vex’s permission--”

“I dare you,” Vex says instantly, jumping on her brother’s side.

Percy looks at her in surprise, a little hurt by her betrayal but obviously being successfully goaded into it but the twinkle in his eyes. “Really? My own wife helping to gang up on me?”

She leans an elbow on Vax’s shoulder and smiles brightly. She wouldn’t do this if she thought Percy would be uncomfortable, but the spark of interest in his eyes makes her feel much better about it. There are few things Percy won’t do for a dare, and if he’s truly uncomfortable she knows he’d draw a line. He doesn’t seem to be. “Our vows didn’t say anything about you being excused from me goading you into bets.”

“This is stupid,” Percy says again.

“But you’ll do it now?” Vax says hopefully.

Percy looks him over warily. “First, what’s the thing we’re betting on?”

Vax’s eyes gleam.

* * *

Percy doesn’t seem nearly as shellshocked as he did with Elaina, although that’s not hard considering how he was last time.

“You gonna cry when you hold them like Elaina, Freddie?” Vax asks with a smirk.

“No,” Percy says defensively, his eyes glued to the twins in her arms.

(When Vex finally hands the boy to him, he tears up anyways. Vax’s smirk grows. When he holds the girl the tears only continue.)

“So,” Vex says once the babies have all been passed around, immediately pulling them back to her. “Percival and Johanna.”

“Percival Frederickstein Von Whatsit de Rolo the Fourth,” Scanlan says with a little smile. “Because that’s not going to be confusing at all.”

“Gods, I wonder who could possibly be responsible for that,” Percy says pointedly, shifting his gaze between Vex and Vax.

“You took the bet,” Vex points out, smirking.

“And you lost, Freddie,” Vax finishes, resting his chin in his hand as he looks smugly at his brother-in-law.

Percy grumbles.

(The bet involved Grog’s alchemy jug, an hour, and a whole lot of mayonnaise. Percy lost, obviously.)

“Why don’t we just call the bitty Percy Freddie instead?” Grog asks suddenly, and the room goes quiet.

Finally, Vax quietly says, “That’s genius, Grog.”

“Is it?” Grog blinks, caught off guard at the compliment. “I mean-- yes, of course it is!” He laughs, a cocky grin spreading across his big bearded face. _“Obviously.”_

“Well, that will at least make it easier, I suppose,” Percy says with a sigh.

Vax throws an arm around his brother-in-law’s shoulders, startling him as the shorter man grins up at him. “Aww, Percy, don’t worry! You’re always going to be my favorite Freddie.”

“Thanks,” Percy says dryly, but Vex is amused to note the way Percy leans against him, fondly melting against her brother’s side. The two have had their issues over the years, but they’ll always be friends-- brothers-- in the end.

A servant sticks her head in and says, “My lord, my lady? Elaina’s woken up from her nap. Should I bring her--?”

“I’ll bring her, thank you,” Percy says instantly, detangling himself from Vax’s limbs. He steps up to the bed and kisses Vex’s forehead, then does to the same to both of their children. Before he can step away, Vex reaches up and curls her fingers into the collar of his shirt and pulls him down into a long kiss. When she finally releases him, they’re both grinning.

“I hope she likes them,” Vex whispers, catching one of his hands with hers and threading their fingers together.

“She will,” Percy reassures, squeezing his hand before releasing and making his way out of the room.

Keyleth leans forward and smiles at Vex, brilliant and wide, her freckles clearly visible against her happily flushed face. “So we know where Percival-- Freddie-- came from, but Johanna… that’s Percy’s mother, right?”

Vex smiles softly down at her daughter. “Yes. It just… it just seems right.”

The druid’s wide eyes become impossibly gentle. “That’s really nice.”

It takes another ten minutes but Percy returns carrying a still waking three year old in a light blue dress with a white ribbon in her hair, dressed up all pretty for meeting her siblings for the first time. The room immediately lights up when Elaina enters, the family all saying hello to her. She’s like a little sunbeam, really, except without the potential blindness if you look at her too long. She smiles sleepily at all of them, snuggling further into Percy’s arms.

He whispers something to her, low enough where only she can hear, and she immediately snaps to attention, looking over the room. Percy nods at Vex and the bundles in her arms, both wrapped in blue and gold-- never too young for Whitestone colors, Vex muses absently-- and Elaina’s face fills with curiosity, looking between her mother and the newborns.

“You want to go see your brother and sister?” Percy asks quietly, but loud enough that they can hear him now.

“Yeah,” Elaina says, straining forward to look.

Elaina refuses to let go of Percy but leans forward in his arms to get a better look at the babies. She holds a hand against her mouth as her dark eyes look them over, still young but already showing signs of inheriting the sharp and intuitive gaze of her parents. Finally, she says, “They’re little.”

Percy laughs. “You’re little too.”

Elaina thinks this over for a few seconds before declaring, “No.”

Keyleth hides her face in Grog’s shoulder, voice muffled as she squeals, _“That’s so cute.”_

The behemoth of a man looks nearly as wonderstruck as the druid, the most adorable smile spread across his face as he looks back and forth between the three quarter elves. He absently pats Keyleth on the back in what Vex imagines is meant to be comforting, but he does it a little too hard and Keyleth makes a gentle _oof_ sound.

He doesn’t even look at Vex, eyes glued on the babies, as he asks, “Vex, can I hold ‘em again?”

She laughs. “Of course.”

Grog has barely gotten both of them into his arms before Elaina has begun pouting. “Me too!”

Vax grins, reaching out to ruffle Elaina’s hair. “You wanna sit with Uncle Grog or you wanna hold the babies?”

“Uncle Grog!” she exclaims, holding her arms out to the big man.

That’s the point where Grog begins to cry, shuffling the babies in his arms a little so there’s room on his lap while he sniffles. “C’mere Elaina.”

Percy smiles and lets Elaina go on the floor. She’s quick, barely released by her father before she’s climbing up onto Grog’s knee. She isn’t as clumsy as other kids her age that Vex has seen, instead having a natural grace to her movement where other children would be clunky or awkward still, almost too big for their bodies.

Grog stays like that for a while, holding both the babies while Elaina chatters away on his knee. He looks incredibly touched that he gets to be close to them like this, and Vex doesn’t think she’s ever seen him look more at home than when he’s with them.

“All your bitties are good,” Grog says finally. “I dunno if I wanna give ‘em back.”

And he’s joking, of course, but Vex would be blind not to see the touch of seriousness in his eyes as he looks down at the three quarter elves, like he wouldn’t mind not giving them back. She thinks it’s funny and, frankly, rather adorable.

* * *

She doesn’t stay up in the castle quite as long as she did with Elaina, which is a bit funny considering there are two new children this time around, but she finds that she doesn’t really need it. Part of the reason she stayed up in the castle for so long when Elaina was born was that she was still terrified out of her mind and wanted to be close to help when she inevitably did something wrong-- the inexperienced first-time mother panicking and all that.

She didn’t really do anything wrong, of course, but it also gave her quick access to emotional support, which she definitely needed the first time around.

Now, though, it’s not quite as bad. She’s been through this once before and so has Percy and she’s not nearly as scared.

So when she lays in her own bed with the twins in her arms for the first time it’s… indescribable. It feels perfect, like the missing piece of a puzzle finally fitting into place and making everything whole.

Percy finishes messing with the twins’ room some more-- a nervous habit, he always fixes things when he’s nervous even when there’s nothing there to fix-- before he comes into the bedroom and changes into his sleep clothes, looking tired and a bit jittery but content.

“Hi,” she whispers as he crawls into bed with her, holding his arms out. She lets him take their son from her.

“Hello,” he says, but she gets the impression that he’s talking more to the babies than to her.

“I wonder if he’ll end up looking like you,” she muses as she glances between the Third and the Fourth. “Johanna too, of course, but Freddie especially.”

Percy snorts. “I suppose. I still can’t believe we went with that for his name.”

“You lost the bet--”

“I know, and next time we make a bet about the names of our children, _you_ can be the one to chug mayonnaise.”

Vex wrinkles her nose. “Hard pass.”

“Exactly,” he says dryly. After a moment his expression softens. “I will admit-- calling him Freddie does, ah, make sense. Obviously Vax gets to put his nickname to good use, but also--”

“Your father,” Vex says suddenly, the realization hitting her before he even says it.

He nods. “He wasn’t really called Freddie much-- I think my mother called him that a handful of times-- but I think it’s still nice.”

“It is,” she agrees. Then a stray thought sneaks up on her and she becomes unbearably curious. “Percy?”

“Mmm?”

“Unrelated to babies, but related to your parents. What did your parents call each other, out of curiosity?”

His eyebrows knit together, perplexed at her question, but he answers her. “Mostly dear, sometimes my dear or dearest if they were feeling particularly fond of each other.”

She can’t help the little pulse of happiness at that thought, a wide grin spreading across her face. “So _that’s_ where you get it from!”

He stares at her uncomprehendingly for a moment before he seems to understand, expression shifting to amusement. “I suppose it is. I--”

They’re distracted by their bedroom door opening with a creak. At first Vex is confused because nobody is there, but a quick look down at the wild mass of brown hair and dark eyes remedies that.

Elaina wastes no time crawling up onto the bed next to them. “I wanna see ‘em!”

Vex squints at her. “Elaina, darling, it’s far past your bedtime.”

And Elaina, sweet Elaina, proceeds to give her a look that clearly says _I’m your daughter, why would I follow rules like bedtime without a fight?_

Frankly, it’s a rather amazingly stubborn and defiant look for a three year old and Vex can’t help but be a little impressed. Starting early with the rebellion, she sees. Must run in the family.

After a moment of Elaina and Vex staring each other down, Vex relents with a soft sigh and a roll of her eyes. “Fine.”

Elaina grins ear to pointed ear, settling herself against Percy’s other side and resting her cheek against his shoulder.

“Can I hold ‘em?” she asks, looking up at Percy with those sweet, nearly black they’re so dark brown eyes. He melts instantly, the way he always does when Vex turns her matching gaze onto him. She grins a little and rolls her eyes. Elaina already knows how to play Percy like a fiddle.

“You have to be careful, pup,” Percy murmurs as he settles their son in Elaina’s arms, and Vex smiles. There are few things she loves more than her husband when he’s soft and sweet, and rarely is he softer or sweeter than with Elaina-- and these two, now. The term of endearment, pup, had knocked her sideways the first time she heard him use it. (The dark, almost sultry voice of Sylas Briarwood played back in her head-- “Look, dear. The pup still lives.") Percy had, almost timidly, confessed that pup was an endearment his parents had used for him and his siblings. Sylas’s usage of the word had been deliberate, something he must have heard, and even now, years later with that long behind them, Vex feels her blood boil at the thought. Percy using pup is a reclaiming of his past, of that memory.

Elaina’s eyes go wide as she looks down at her brother. “Woah!”

Percy smiles. “Woah indeed.”

Vex leans in and presses a kiss against his cheek, resting her head on his shoulder as she watches Elaina make faces down at her little brother. “I’m happy,” she says softly.

“So am I,” he says, reaching around to wrap an arm around her shoulders. “Isn’t that strange? I know I’ve been happy for a long time now-- due in no small part to you-- but this… this happiness never fails to surprise me. To feel foreign.”

She closes her eyes, part of her pained by his words because she knows that feeling, feels it vibrating through her bones herself. “I hope someday it doesn’t seem foreign. I hope someday you’re used to being happy. I hope--” She fumbles, words catching in her throat. “I hope someday we both are.”

And despite herself, despite the cozy joy of the situation, she feels hot pinpricks at the corners of her eyes. Percy smiles at her, almost a bit sadly, before he leans in and presses a kiss into her hair and mumbles something in Celestial.

She doesn’t speak the language, never bothered to pick it up, and Percy has never translated the words to her, but when he speaks she hears it with her heart and it knows even when her mind and ears don’t.

“You too,” she whispers, snuggling further into her husband’s shoulder, surrounded by the proof of their love.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the world is brighter than the sun (now that you’re here)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11961678) by [audioSalix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/audioSalix/pseuds/audioSalix)




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